pet connection

Point of fact: I have always hated Barbie.

I hated that you couldn’t do anything with her but stand her up to look pretty, and that playing make-believe with her was about as interesting as playing with a pointy-headed stick. (Which may actually be all that Barbie really is, anyway.) And that was before I got old enough to figure out that she didn’t look like anyone ever has or could without bulimia and plastic surgery. Or before I got older still, and realized that the standard set for large, high and surgically augmented racks on women young and old and the accompanying fetish for the kinds of shoes that would be considered abuse if forced on us by law meant that there are a whole lot of women looking — or trying to look — like idiotsBarbies instead of, you know, women.

No, the Barbie or two that came my way was ignored (but at least not tortured, which still creeps me out). For me, Breyer horses, all the way. Before you could buy accessories for them, I made my own: String halters, tissue-paper blankets and felt saddles, all lovingly preserved by my mother. (OK, honestly: Tossed in a box and forgotten for decades until my mom  told me  in no uncertain terms that I needed to get my stupid plastic horses and other childhood debris out of her garage.)

When my niece went through her very brief Barbie stage at age 8 or so, her parents dutifully threw her a Barbie-themed birthday party. I was chided and considered a Bad Sport for refusing to support that crap, and brought her a Breyer, which I continued to do pretty routinely for the next decade.

It worked.

My smart and beautiful niece is an equine studies major now, a witty three-sport athlete who can lift hay bales and saddles, back a horse-trailer into a parking space sized for a compact car and is more than woman enough to wear  a strapless short sundress and drag the eyes of a couple hundred men off the finish line at the Del Mar race track with a flip of her hair. She rode her horse to pick up her high school diploma, the day after graduation ceremonies.

She is an action figure, not a Barbie.

So what does this have to do with pets? Turns out my Barbie hate and my intense dislike for the Paris Hilton tiny-puppy-mill-dog-as-fashion-accessory craze have dovetailed neatly, if rather depressingly, into a Barbie that comes complete not only with the standard Barbie idiocy, but also with fashion accessory plastic puppies.

No, they didn’t name it Puppy Mill Barbie, which would have been far more accurate, of course.  The model is Barbie® Potty Training Pups^TM, yours for around $20 in your nearest big-box China crap retail outlet.

Puppy Mill Barbie comes with three purse-sized puppy mill dogs, toys, dishes and “papers” for “potty-training” — although the word on the street is that the puppies leak from the wrong places, probably from some puppy-mill caused illness.

For anyone tempted to get a toddler indoctrinated into the cult of idiocyBarbie early, please note that Puppy Mill Barbie is not suitable for girls under 3, because the small parts may be a “choking hazard.”

I can attest to that. I’ve been choking on the vomit in my mouth from the very second I laid eyes on the thing.

Hey everyone, it’s bunny time!  I’m going to give you an article summary that sounds like it’s straight from The National Enquirer, but it’s true.

A rabbit inspired an abused woman to seek help, which then led to the rabbit being cured of cancer.   I didn’t make this up. Even I’m not that imaginative.  A tip of the hat to loyal reader Mary Mary for this one.  The bunny story comes to us from USA Today.

In November, Joy Gioia, head of the St. Louis chapter of the House Rabbit Society, which takes in and re-homes some of the growing number of pet rabbits landing in animal shelters, got a heartbreaking call. It was from a woman who’d been abused by her husband for a very long time and had finally screwed up her courage in October to flee … with nothing but her rabbit.  She’d lived on the streets for a time, she told Gioia, making do with handouts. When food was scarce, she made sure there was enough for the dark-furred bunny she had named Ruby Angel because the white mark on her nose resembled an angel.

[...]The rabbit was saved not just from more abuse, but from cancer. When Ruby was spayed two weeks ago, as is the practice when HRS accepts rabbits, she was found to have uterine cancer. The cancer had not yet spread, so Ruby has a future.

Recovering with four-legged friends requires less pain medication: Although this feels intuitively true, data now backs it up.   Specifically looking at joint replacement surgery patients, the study says that patients  with pets needed up to 50% less pain medication then those who didn’t.

“Evidence suggests that animal-assisted therapy (AAT) can have a positive effect on a patient’s psychosocial, emotional and physical well being,” said Julia Havey, RN, study presenter and senior systems analyst, Department of Medical Center Information Systems, Loyola University Health System (LUHS). “These data further support these benefits and build the case for expanding the use of pet therapy in recovery.”

You can read the rest of the article here at ScienceDaily.

Indiana looks to control puppy mills: If you live in Indiana and run a commercial dog brokerage operation, starting New Year’s Day you’ll have to register with the state board of animal health and pay the state $1,000 a year.  The threshold for brokers: 500 dogs or puppies sold annually.  For breeders: it’s 20 unspayed females who are at least a year old, and the fee will depend on the number of dogs (after 20, presumably).  One important note from the article:

The law doesn’t affect animal shelters, rescue operations, hobby breeders, and anyone who breeds at least 75 percent of their dogs for sporting, service or law enforcement and military purposes.

Common sense advice on handling pets around people at the holidays: A valuable annual reminder from The Other End of the Leash.  It never hurts to keep in mind some of these guidelines before the aunts and uncles, nieces, nephews and assorted cousins descend upon you, or when you head across the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house (hint: dog sitters can be worth their weight in gold).

The best newspaper lede of the week: “So you think you know about dogs?  Sorry, you do not”.  That’s the beginning of a column from the Denver Post that made me laugh out loud and think.  The message behind the humor is sobering, which makes it even more effective. …

I’ll be back Monday if not sooner. Got a good link? In the comments to share.

Image: Ruby Angel, from USA Today.

LauraS had a fantastic idea in the comments the other day:

That we come up with some bumper-sticker sized slogans to help people realize there is a difference between a  reputable, ethical breeder and puppy-milling scum.

And that the difference doesn’t have anything to do with “papers,” either from a registry like the AKC or from an entity like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees factory farms for puppies.

The last thing? It’s likely part of the problem, since the goal of the USDA and the puppy-mill industry is not eliminating mass-breeders, but making them acceptable to a public that doesn’t know that there’s more to developing a family pet than putting the mother on non-porous flooring or in a cleaner cage.

So … we have Christie’s long-time offering: “Family homes for family pets.” But does that “read” to anyone just walking into thinking about a puppy?

Or … ?

Pitch it the comments. If we get something we all like, I’ll have our graphic artist make a sticker and sell it at cost in our store — or maybe a add-on going to small rescue groups?

Not sure how we pick a winner, but I’m happy to offer an autographed set of our  “Ultimate” books — including the newest that will be out next month, “The Ultimate Bird-Lover.”

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

The Petland store  in Roseville, Calif., has shut down. Before Christmas, which is always the peak season for impulse puppy buying.

At right is the sign on the door.

Congratulations to Jennifer Fearing of the California office of the HSUS for keeping a small but dedicated band of volunteer picketers on the street in front of the retailer the first Saturday of every month. While no doubt the economy had more than a little to do with the closing, I doubt the constant presence of picketers helped.

These people made a difference, and  I’m happy that one time I was one of them.

Let me say this: I don’t give a damn that those in the black helicopter crowd think the term “puppy-mill” was invented by animal-rights groups (it wasn’t) and that they don’t believe puppy-mills exist (they do) or that they don’t think it’s a problem if they do exist, if only the millers would clean up a little like those “model operations” you always hear about (family pets shouldn’t be raised in factory farms, even clean ones).

If you don’t think puppy mills are hideous, you either lack a heart or a brain, either way, your opinion rates for nothing with me. And I say that as a reputable, ethic breeder who doesn’t think people who care about preserving and protecting our heritage breeds need to side with puppy-milling scum in fighting forced spay-neuter and limit laws.

Reputable breeders — who are often involved in rescue as well — toss their credibility with other animal-lovers when they side with puppy-milling scum.

I called the HSUS out when they had it coming. This time, they have congratulations in order. Read more about their investigation of Petland.

Now, let me also say …

I have a hard time seeing any regulatory or legislative action that will protect reputable breeders while shutting down puppy-mills. That’s why I think education is everything. For only when people understand what they’re buying in a retail puppy outlet and stop supporting cruelty will the puppy mills go away.

That’s why I hope this small victory gets more people out there with more picket signs. So we can see more notices like the one above.

Dr. Marty Becker and I wrote a short article for today’s edition of Parade magazine on the health and behavior challenges of today’s oh-so popular tiny dogs.  We interviewed Pet Connection regular commenter Lis about what she likes about Addy, her powderpuff Chinese Crested. Alas, Lis and Addy were trimmed for space.

Miami veterinary surgeon Dr. Marc Wosar, who has put oodles of tiny poodles and other little dogs back together as well as taken the bad bits out of them, took time out from a surgical seminar in lovely La Jolla, Calif.,  to give an extensive interview. (He also helped me with some timely advice on Heather’s pain patch, which had gotten wet. Since it was still sticking tight, said Dr. Wosar, she was still getting the pain relief. He made us both feel better, and no doubt helped to extend Heather’s time on this earth.)

Deborah Wood also was generous with her advice. She’s a person I’ve “known” for years but never had a long conversation with until this article. She is an expert on training small dogs, and recently took her expertise as a writer/trainer into a new arena: As director of her local animal shelter.

Too bad we didn’t have more room. As it stands, though, the piece is small but mighty meaty!

What else didn’t make the cut: If you want a small dog, adopt from a shelter or rescue or buy in person from reputable, ethical  home-based breeder. Small breeds and mixes are popular with puppy-milling scum, and the puppies that make it out of those hell-holes are especially challenged with health and behavior problems.

Not to mention: When you buy from a pet store or puppy-mill Web site, you’re supporting the continuation of a system of cruelty that’s truly mind-boggling. Your puppy may be safe now, but his mother isn’t.